Friday, September 01, 2017

American journalism has taken a beating in the last year, to a large extent by those angry that it's doing its job. "Fake news" has come to be a lazy slur toward any story that reflects poorly on one's tribe.

But what's obscured is the culpability of the increasingly large part of the media that no longer engages in journalism. The part whose sole purpose is to give microphones to divisive windbags and blowhards reading the Script of their tribe.

Most of this part of the media is stuck in the binary narrative that essentially reduces everything to a zero sum gain. It is tribalism plain and simple.

There is no more effective recipe for division than convincing people that social and economic progress is a zero sum gain.

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Not everyone who voted for Donald Trump adheres to his cult, but Trumpism has clearly become a cult.

During last year's presidential campaign, I often noted that Donald Trump's appeal reminded me very much of the sort of naked tribalism westerners associate with the so-called 'third world.' South African comedian Trevor Noah went so far as to describe Trump as America's first African president.

His presidency has shown this to be completely accurate.

A Guardian piece interviewed a number of Trump supporters at one of his recent virulent rallies. He is much better at campaigning than at governing.

One woman praised him for being "anti-left, anti-PC, anti-stupid."

She's no 'deplorable', easy for snobs to look their nose down at. She is a senator in the Arizona state legislature.

But her comment perfectly encapsulates Trumpism.

She does not state one positive (in her mind) accomplishment that Trump has made since becoming president. Not one promise kept.

In her eyes, and the eyes of many Trump loyalists, his best quality is how much he hates the left. How much he hates the "politically correct." How much he hates the media.

His emphasis on hating other Americans is not a flaw, in their eyes, but his greatest virtue. If you press them, it seems to be his only virtue.

This is why they are impervious to any kind of logical argument.

They claimed to oppose Hillary because she was investigated by the FBI but when Trump is investigated by the same, it's a conspiracy. They claimed to be furious at Hillary's handling of emails but ignored Vice-President Pence's similar infractions. They denounced "crooked Hillary" but have no problem with Trump turning the presidency into an extension of his family business (very much like a stereotypical African dictator). They cheered his insistence that he would make Mexico pay for the border wall but are silent when he threatens to shut down the government if the (US) Congress refuses to fund it.

And can you imagine the rage they would launch at any "liberal" with such deep ties to regime hostile to the US? At any "liberal" who defended symbols of anti-US sentiment (Confederate statues)? At any "liberal" who attacked Gold Star families?

The reason for these apparent inconsistencies is simple. All the claims above were not sincere. They were poses. They were pretexts invented to justify what was really a vote for a worldview, far more than a vote for a particular candidate.

That is why that when, he can't deliver on his promises, it never due to any fault of his own. It's the fault of the evil media. Or the powerless Democrats. Or of venal Republicans who don't obey his orders completely.

They could only vote for him for president. They really want to install him as emperor.

Donald Trump is part of their tribe and what he actually does is fairly irrelevant to his most rabid supporters.

Partisan politics has always had a certain tribal aspect to it. But there's always been the pretense of a certain ideological basis. Trump has resorted to naked cult appeal.

This is why his poll numbers are collapsing. In a recent poll, 61% of Americans said they had low or no confidence in Trump. Only 49% of Americans voted for Hillary. Clearly, even many who voted for him are starting to see through his scam.

In a story about the 1982 New York Democratic gubernatorial primary, a Village Voice article noted: "For too many people in our tightening political economy, the family ties and values he loves have been broken or twisted so that they bear no fruit in good health or fresh opportunities. And as openness and hope become overwhelmed by fear and hatred in enough people's lives - openness curldes to bitterness and hope shrivels to a craving for revenge - hard-pressed voters turn to leaders with a streak of malevolence resembling their own - leaders who reassure them perversely by showing them where they can extract vengeance for their own diminished lives."

Monday, May 22, 2017

There's been much talk in recent years about "religious liberty" and "religious freedom." In general, this is a fraud. What is usually being discussed is the supremacy of a particular religion. What many want is for the US to implement the Christian equivalent of Sharia Law. This is a grave threat to our constitutional republic, something that threatens far more Americans than anything ISIS is doing in Syria or Iraq.

Remember, if you are a soldier, politician, Peace Corps volunteer or any other kind of public servant, you swore an oath to protect the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign AND DOMESTIC.

The Founders of the republic intentionally devised a system where no one faith had official status. This is why no specific religion is mentioned in the Constitution.

While everyone is focused on the chaos in the Trump regime, much truly evil legislation is being pushed at the state level with far less notice.

You could be dying and the doctor could refuse to treat you because s/he doesn't like gay or trans people. Seriously WTF?! Is this America or Saudi Arabia?

It would allow nurses and doctors to discuss a woman's medical condition with her husband against her wishes, if their religious beliefs state that a husband is the head of the household.

But theocrats should beware of this double edged sword: such a bill would also permit a Jewish or Muslim nurse to refuse treatment to Christians.

It would also let them refuse to serve you because you're a man or woman if their religion bans them contact with people of the opposite gender not related to them. Your intent may be to harm LGBT people but you risk harming yourself.

So-called Christians are plotting and, in some cases achieving, far more damage to American citizens than any Muslim extremist group. Civilized Christians need to denounce this and loudly.

If you are a medical PROFESSIONAL, your job is to help people, not to refuse to help them.

You have the right to a religion. You don't have the right to a job.

If your religion states you can't do your job helping someone because of who they are, you either need a new religion or a new job. Or perhaps a new country.

Then again, we’ve devolved into a political culture where big business has
successfully bought politicians to advance their corporate interests at the
expense of the public. I guess Trump is just skipping the middle man. Maybe
that’s where Betsy DeVos got the idea from.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Kelo v New London is arguably the worst Supreme Court
decision of my life time still in effect. Citizens United is terrible too but
it mostly legimitized a system that was increasingly corrupt anyways.

The US Constitution permits the taking of “private property for public USE" with just compensation.This process was typically used to
obtain land to build highways, bridges, parks and other things the public has
access to. There have often been battles over what constitutes just
compensation but the principle of what constituted “public use” was pretty
clear.

The Kelo ruling threw this out and authorized eminent
domainto be used for the far more
nebulous reason of the public benefit. This is often invoked to justify giving
the land – or selling it at a pittance - to a private developer to build a
private structure because of the “public benefit” of greater tax revenue.

In other words, it opened the door for the government to
seize property and use it to further crony capitalism.

In this story, the city of Hartford, CT, seized land from a
developer who wanted to build a mixed-use structure adjacent to where a new
baseball stadium was being built. The city seized the property from one
developer and gave it to another developer.

Monday, November 14, 2016

I’ve been
saying for a long time that the decline of journalism would have a major impact
on civic life in America. It was not an original though... Chris Hedges even
wrote a book about it.

This
decline did not start in 2016 nor did its effects.

My dad
pointed out the start of this trend about 20 years ago. It was reinforced to me
when I lived abroad and listened on shortwave to foreign radio stations and
noticed how differently they covered issues.

The
decline is essentially the increasing emphasis on polls and “analysis” and
opinion at the expense of in-depth factual reporting. Journalism has become
less about revealing what’s going on beneath the surface and mostly dominated
by parroting of superficial conventional wisdom. It’s shallow b.s. and the
media that pats itself on the bdack as watchdog is suffocated by it.

For the
last several years, Nate Silver has been canonized by adherents of the analysis
school of “journalism.” I think only a week before the election, I checked his
site. It said that Hillary Clinton had at least a 95% chance of winning (might
have been 99%). It said that she had 268 electoral votes in the bag and Trump
210. And that basically Trump had to win every single swing state, bar none, to
win the election. Clinton will end up far short of even that 268 that Mr.
Infallible predicted. He epitomizes the failure of modern journalism. He’s a
statistician yet the media treated what he did as journalism.

Trump/Pence’s
fascist bigoted agenda was only endorsed by one of every four Americans. Trump
is our president but the overwhelming majority did not endorse his agenda. Only
one of our four

Nearly
half of all Americans did not vote. This shows how sick our democracy is far
more so than the identity of the winning ticket. The media only reports on two
choices. And despite overwhelming disgust with those two, they almost
completely ignore the two (national ones) that offer something meaningfully
different. “Conventional wisdom” was that you were wasting your vote if you
voted for a smaller party candidate. Even on those rare occasions a smaller
party candidate gets media attention, there is NEVER an occasion where s/he
isn’t asked about being a “spoiler” or chances of winning or other horse race
garbage. S/he is lucky if meaningful policy discussion is even half of the
interview.

So when
you are told that your choices are to waste your vote on a good candidate or
support someone you find morally repugnant, it is any surprise nearly half of
Americans said “the heck with all this”? When they find out that the person who
gets the most votes doesn’t win – unlike EVERY OTHER OFFICE IN AMERICA – it
makes the process seem even more pointless. When “experts” and the professional
pundit class tell them must vote for the “lesser of two evils” and to vote for
A because B sucks even more, does that really inspire them with a deep sense of
patriotic and civic pride?

If you
want those half of Americans to actually vote, don’t lecture them. Don’t
condescend to them. Give them a positive reason to do so.

Saturday, November 12, 2016

Donald Trump will be my president in a few months. Just as Barack Obama will be my president until then. This is true even though I never voted for either of them.

There is a very simple reason for this.

If he is not my president, he owes me nothing.

If he is my president, then he is my public SERVANT. If he is my president, then he has the obligation to represent me. If he is my president, then I have standing to hold his rear end accountable and his administration's if he doesn't. If he is my president and I don't think he's doing a good job, I can try to get him fired in four years.

He will be the president of ALL Americans in a few months, whether he likes it or not. He needs to be reminded of that. Don't give him and his team an excuse to do otherwise.

Friday, June 24, 2016

The departure of the UK from the European Union and the rise of Trump are interesting and related phenomena.

It's often said in this country that Trump is a threat to our democracy. In fact, he's a product of our democracy's failures. The same could be said of the Brexit.

Hatemongering fascists have always been an undercurrent of most societies. They only rise to prominence when the ruling elite is discredited as corrupt and dishonest and betraying those who work for a living.

The EU is not really a coherent organization or set of institutions. Although it does confer many benefits, it's marginally democratic and hard for people to feel a sense of loyalty toward. Fixing it was a harder sell that quitting it. But the latter will have consequences too.

It's easy for someone to look at Hillary Clinton's traditionally sketchy relationship with truth and ethics and think "The heck with that." As Trump is the only alternative most are made aware of, the disgusted gravitate toward him.

It's beyond question that many racists and other bigots support Trump. But it's a mistake to infer that all, or even most, Trump supporters are like that. Many just want something different from the corporatist sellouts that the Democratic and GOP elites have been shoving down our throats for decades and erroneously think Trump is their only option.

Trump's a more firmly part of the exploitative elitist class than even Clinton. And he's not their only non-Clinton option. Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Dr. Jill Stein are both far better choices than Trump and Clinton and offer positive, affirmative agendas.

Spending decades trivializing the concerns of people who work for a living - and claiming they are just racists - is what's caused the huge backlash against the Democratic and Republican elites.

Establishment fearmongering didn't prevent the Brexit and it will not be enough by itself to prevent a Trump presidency. When you don't give people an affirmative option to say yes to, the vacuum will usually be filled with something more nefarious.

About Me

The author is a freelance writer and journalist who lives in upstate New York. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Republic of Guinea (Conakry), West Africa, in the mid-90s. He is also fluent in French.
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L'auteur est un journaliste et écrivain qui habite le nord de l'Etat de New York. Il fut volontaire professeur de maths au sein du Corps de la Paix américain; il serva en République de Guinée (Conakry) en Afrique de l'Ouest dans les années 90.